School... was not fun. For one, all of that security that FBI Special Agent Mannheim had intimated would arrive, had. Overnight. And just because Jimmy knew that they couldn't identify him from Adam, did not stop that surge of shear terror from spiking through him every time one of their groups of two walked by.

They looked like a Super Human Response Team. They were without fail, big and muscular with set faces and serious, roving eyes. They wore a type of dark, greyish fatigues which made Jimmy think heavily of urban camouflage, and their weapons were — big.

Jimmy didn't know much more about guns than any other boy in a post-Super world his age, but as far he could tell, he didn't think most gun magazines were that fat... or that there were usually quite so many switches and knobs on the frame.

Super rated. These guys were serious.

Then there was Vicky.

Not her personally, but as Jimmy stepped up to his locker and three boys nearby all swooned as one, Jimmy could already predict the ending of this episode. And he was right.

They weren't the last. They may not have even been the first, but Jimmy had been so preoccupied with the new security personnel he wouldn't have noticed anything not at least wearing combat boots.

Now though....

Boys and girls swooned around him and laughed. Some even slapped their faces up hurriedly to best encapsulate the event before babbling dramatically in inane voices.

"—I think Supers..."

" — upers aren't bad. They're just misunderstood! Oh hello Vi..."

"—cky, I LOVE y—"

Jimmy's face burned.

"— Vicky"

"Vi —"

He hunched his shoulders as he pulled books out, stuffed them in his bag and practically ran from his locker.

"I'd fight a Super for you, Vi —"

"— Vicky"

"Vicky"

And he bumped into — "Vicky!" he gasped. Her gorgeous eyes filled his vision. And her mouth. The tips of it were quirked into a small smile.

"Hey! KNOCK it off, Guys!" She glared around until they subsided to snickers and then she squinted at him. "You're... Jimmy. Right?"

And Jimmy died again.

----------------------------------------

"Pay no attention to fools and pigs, Jimmy. Both will drag you into the mud with them, and they enjoy it." Patricia scowled archly from the seat over.

Her eyes were looking at him. But her scowl seemed directed at everything else but him. He was just the one graced with it. It was... comforting in a way.

Her curls fell down her shoulder in a red wave and she was hunched over her notebook scribbling furiously.

"You look tired." He said after a moment.

"The night was long, and full of terror. Did you solve the two body pendulum problem?"

"No!" Jimmy breathed. "Did you? I keep getting the second mass as -367 grams. It's a nightmare!"

Patricia nodded gravely. "Let me see your work," She said and held out her hand. "I think the adjustment you have to make is...".

And the day brightened for the five minutes it took History to start.

Then three of Vicky's friends strode in. One of them, Raven — who actually looked like someone named Raven might — spied him and gave him a full faced smirk before putting her head together with Melody to giggle.

The less said about all the other periods the better, and the day's only saving grace was... "Thank FUDGE there's no gym on Fridays."

"It's ok, Jimmy." Nate said consolingly while Sashaya threw a companionable arm around his shoulder and Tom bit back snickers of — probably also companionable — mirth. "I'm sure come Monday everyone will have forgotten the color your face turns when Vicky's name is mentioned. And think on the bright side. At least on Monday, you'll have had the opportunity to wash your gym jersey."

In hindsight, Jimmy thought gloomily, They probably wondered why he'd thrown his hands up and announced that he was going to burn all of his turtlenecks. After he was done with them of course.

----------------------------------------

The hat wobbled on the man's grey head as he nodded vigorously. "Oh. YES. That's the stuff!"

"I-it — is?"

Black eyes glimmered beneath grey and bushy eyebrows.

"Come with me, boy. Time is a poor currency to waste." He clapped his hands. "One. Two. Three. Four. Step right through my secret Doo —"

----------------------------------------

Breaking News. Amaterasu STRIKES again. With the Fires at Enderson Highschool and his childhood home STILL burning, the Super Human colloquially known as Amaterasu but who the authorities have identified as seventeen year old, Ren Yoshida has teamed up with Legion also known as Oren Hunt.

Together, they are tearing a swath through Menrose county just east of Enderson. Governor Hess has activated Reserve units and called up the local National guard while pleading with adjacent states to send aid. He has also declared that a full evacuation of the area is now in progress.

President Mires has pledged his full support.

"We stand with Arizona. We stand with the good people of Enderson and Menrose county."

However the President pushed back against declaring sweeping emergency measures.

"These attacks are not random. They are surgical and do NOT appear to be targeting civilians. Now is not the time to turn our sights on Supers at large. We must embrace our differences and come together as. One. Nation!"

Public sentiment is moving against the President here, with public protests numbering in the hundred thousands dotting the US map.

"—ing them down!"

"I don't care how — I don't—"

"NUKE the bastards if you have to!"

With the primary election just around the corner this may well turn the tide in Kent Maccabee's favor.

More on this, at eight.

Jimmy pulled his pillow over his head and screamed into the fluff.

----------------------------------------

"Was that a cry for help, bro?"

"Shut up, Kaykes."

"Who's that your texting?

"Vicky."

Her eyes slid his way slowly.

"She says she's looking forward to our picnic on Sunday."

"If you send anything more than the most banal of smiley faces, Jimmy, I'm going to stab you."

"She might think I'm not int — put that down Kaykes!"

"You're NOT interested." Kaykes hissed. "You're just doing it for your stupid contract. Now come on!" She grabbed Jimmy and tugged him away from the counter.

"You kids going somewhere?"

"Yeah. We're —"

"Hiking," Jimmy inserted helpfully.

Kaykes' eyes swiveled to him suspiciously. "Right... let me change my shoes."

"You kids be careful out there." Jimmy's mother chastened as Kaykes darted off. "You heard the news?"

"I couldn't not." Jimmy grumped.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

His mother gave him a guilty grin, but said, "Well informed is well prepared, Jimmy. You take care of your sis. Got it?"

And he and Kaykes snatched up their bikes and darted out.

"We aren't really, going hiking, right Jim?" Kaykes asked quietly as they swerved out of the driveway. "You said you knew a place."

"I do. Trust me."

And she did as they cycled down the street waving to Mrs. Mavis as they passed by.

And also when they turned right passed Eastwall district mall. She even maintained it as they turned again down Culver Blvd which snaked underneath the freeway and passed new construction residential housing being built on either side.

Kaykes drew the line when they entered midtown park.

"Jimmy. This is totally not what I thought you meant when you said the words 'I know a place'," Kaykes hissed, looking furtively around at the jungle gym and the swing set and the faded green and slightly dry grass field. "When I said P-testing I thought you understood what I meant."

"I did understand what you meant. C'mon. It's passed the park. And it is a bit of a hike —" Jimmy nodded at their pair of bikes. "You want me to card that for you?"

"Better not," Kaykes muttered, looking around suspiciously.

"No one's noticed us," Jimmy said after a moment of introspection. "I can tell."

"Still better not. People saw two kids ride in on bikes. Best they see us also suffering the consequences and lugging them around. Or at least locking them up over there."

She nodded to a set of metal bike loops sticking out of he ground by the field.

They locked them up and Kaykes followed Jimmy around the grass a bit bemusedly, and then up a steep embankment, and into the hills which surrounded the park's far side.

They climbed a bit. They walked a bit, dipped down a bit and then climbed a bit more....

"You heard of FPV Drones, Jimmy? You know... the ones with cameras?" Kaykes's chin length hair swung as she narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the sky above them.

Last week, Nate had commented that Kaykes' hair and eyes made her look like the world's 'most perfect imoto'. He'd regretted that a moment later when the world's most perfect imoto grinned at him with bright eyes and kicked him squarely in the shins. It... may not have helped her case.

"They're all the rage now a days."

Jimmy frowned. "So?

"Well, they can... you know... video...."

"Civilian media is inadmissable as eviden —"

Kaykes stopped. "Have you looked up the Bulwark Act Jimmy?"

"Not... yet?"

"Ok. Well The Bulwark Act was created with the idea that 'advanced and extraordinary' measures were necessary when investigating suspected Super Human involvement in a crime. The idea being, that in a world where people can manipulate citizen's minds, turn invisible and run at mach-jesus, you take your evidence where you can get it, and employ 'extraordinary' means of attaining it. The gate? Suspicion of Super Human involvement in a crime."

Kaykes eyed him meaningfully.

"Huh."

"Technically, it also allows for the expanded measures of interrogation like our Special Agent was hinting at, like AI Driven Truth Detection Technologies, but stops short of things like AI Cold Reads and Water-Boarding... Probably because some Supers might actually enjoy that treatment." Kaykes shook her head. "None of thats the point now though. I see blue sky above me, Jimmy."

'AI Cold Reads!' Jimmy thought, feeling sick. 'Fish-fingers!'

"That's fine. There a pretty dense wooded area around the next hill. We may not be able to stand up straight all the time. But if they can see us from up above, we deserve to be caught. And I've never seen a drone that didn't make a ton of noise."

----------------------------------------

It really was densely wooded here. It was that prickly, almost oaky brush which looks like it should just be those small shrubs that you could crush underfoot, but grown up. And there were a lot of them very close together.

Kaykes and he had to beat a new path into the center — it had been a little while since he'd been here — but afterwards they stood in a kind of wooded dome of spiky branches and leaves.

If a drone picked them out, It was right on top of them, and looking straight down.

"Ok. This is pretty good." Kaykes allowed grudgingly. She pulled out a notepad. "Ok dude. It's time. What can you show me?"

What followed was what Jimmy could only describe as a power based obstacle course designed by a madman.

Kaykes had him card stones, then un-card them at varying time intervals, studying them critically.

She had him try to card air — he had difficulty with that — and then liquid from a water bottle.

He carded the water as it sat still and then watched as his sister checked the temperature using a digital thermometer the moment he un-carded it back into the bottle, comparing it to the temperature directly prior.

"Same temp." She groused, squinting at the reading. "At least to two dec.

Then she had him card the water as she poured it slowly out of the water bottle.

"No! Not all at once! I want just the water as it flows from the rim."

That.... was difficult in a way a bit akin to doing the splits. But.... He finally managed it to his sisters specifications.

Then he had to take a breather.

Kaykes gave him five minutes while tapping her pencil impatiently. Then she said, "C'mon Jimmy! Times money and we can't waste it."

----------------------------------------

"The trees are strong my lord. Their roots go deep."

"Rip them all down!" .... "And technically I'm a Lady. So... 'Instead of a dark lord you shall have a Queen! Not dark, but beautiful as the --'"

"Ok. Ok. You're taking this a little farther than intended your, Grace." Jimmy said. It came out as a grunt.

After Kaykes had developed a baseline by having him en-card rocks of ever increasing size, she'd turned her sights to the bushes — carefully, they didn't want to disappear their cover. The results had surprised even Jimmy.

Apparently, he could en-card anything. Even if he couldn't see the the fullness of the object's form.

"I mean it makes sense, I suppose" Kaykes muttered, chewing pensively on her pencils eraser. "When you en-card — are we really calling it that? — an object, you only really see part of it. Most things are ice-burged. Hmm. We need to find the edges of your power, bro. Thats how we reach understanding."

"I think — I'm... finding one of those... edges now." Jimmy said, gasping.

"Talk to me, Jim."

Jimmy, released the branch he was gripping in a white knuckled grip and backed up shakily. The tree... remained where it was. Kaykes raised an eyebrow.

"No. That's it. Edges." Jimmy said, still gasping for breath. He felt winded. "I couldn't... reach the full shape. It wouldn't flip."

"It's surface area related?" Kaykes exclaimed shrilly. "Why would it be surface area? Mass makes far more sense. Try it again!"

"You know, you're not really a lady."

"Again, Pleb!"

Jimmy tried it again. "Nope." He said backing up breathlessly several seconds later. "Surface area. I'm sure of it. It feels like I'm extending a-a film or something over it. If I can encapsulate it, I can 'eat' it and it becomes a card. Otherwise." Jimmy shrugged.

"And when you take longer than normal to make the card transition?"

Jimmy nodded. "Yea. If its too big, I can kinda stretch for it, you know?" He shivered a bit. "It doesn't feel good though. Vulnerable. Like anything can slide in when I'm open like that. I don't think my power is meant to be a stretch so much as a snap. Or a flip. En-CARD! See?"

"I see...." His sister responded, nonplussed. "So, to be clear... you're telling me... that you can 'en-card'" — she air quoted — "a black hole, with greater ease than you can a hot air balloon."

"I mean... It could also be multi-variate." Jimmy muttered a bit sheepishly. For some reason he was feeling the distinct urge to defend his card powers from Kaykes' scorn. "Could be I just can't hit that limit before my surface area limit hits maximum."

"It should be mass." Kaykes muttered, glaring at her notes. She wasn't listening to him. "Mass is what matters. Not... surface area? Why isn't it mass?!" She glanced at him. "We aren't anywhere near understanding how you're powers work, bro. Can you at least... en-card, like, half the tree?"

Jimmy shook his head. "Nope. Itch didn't like that one bit. All or nothing."

"Drat!" And Kaykes scratched something out on her notepad. "Ok. Lets move on."

Jimmy grinned. He had been looking forward to one thing in particular. "Human catapult?"

"Human catapult! Load the guns, pleb!"

----------------------------------------

The stone crashed into the boulder with the force of a miniature locomotive. It shattered on impact and the two teenagers hit the deck with shrill yelps and curses.

"We... need to step back."

"Yea we should definitely be farther back."

"How big was that rock?"

"Two of your heads."

"This is a serious scientific investigation, Jimmy. I'm not using that unit of measure."

"Is your head changing size?"

"... Right. Two of... my heads." Kaykes scratched words into her notebook.

"Ok try... three heads now. No four. Lets do double. I'm getting a picture here that I'm both enjoying and not in the slightest. Throw the card, release a bit earlier though so I can really capture the flight."

Kaykes held her hand out for The Guys phone for Illicit dealings, glared at the fresh texts from Vicky.

"You've got to be encouraging her", she hissed. "Why the hell is Cheer Captain so interested?"

Then she turned on the camera function.

"Again! With feeling!"

CRAAACK

"Ok. That..." Kaykes gasped, standing back up. "Was still not far enough." She took off her safety glasses — apparently Jimmy had carded an uncomfortable number of them from somewhere and forgotten — and wiped her forehead with her sleeve. "That was too close."

"Oh yeah." Jimmy said breathlessly.

They watched the video, heads together. Then Kaykes rewound it and they watched it again. Then she used her finger to scroll the video right to the frame where Jimmy un-carded the stone.

"Newton. Is throwing a hussy fit in his grave." Kaykes said wonderingly. "I no longer think that surface area crap is strange. We don't seem to be caring about mass at all!"

Jimmy nodded. He knew where Kaykes was going with this, but his sister liked to talk her way through things, so he let her. It helped him too.

"Newtonian physics loves the notion that energy is a property of objects of mass. It's where we get the first law and that nifty conservation of momentum equation."

Jimmy didn't even blink at his sister's analysis. Even though this was so thoroughly beyond the bounds of the ninth grade curriculum, he'd long since come to terms with his sisters outsized knowledge base.

"So when you transform an object into a card, you've changed the mass. We know this because you can lift it and are not a body builder...." She cocked her head. "Also because when you drop a card it doesn't make a giant divot in the soil."

She went back. "When you throw it, your imparting a modicum of energy to the card. Enough energy to chuck a card but NOT a stone. When you transform that stone back, it should suddenly have far too little energy to fly at that same speed, and — you know — drop out of the sky like the stone it is."

Kaykes looked at him seriously. "It doesn't. That stone looks like it's still flying at the same speed as the card was. You're creating energy, bro. Now its thermodynamics laws your slaying."

"It doesn't feel like I'm creating energy, Kaykes." But Jimmy was dragging his fingers through his hair, feeling winded.

"Oh?"

"It feels like I'm putting something back."

"O-ok. But Jimmy... please take your feelings and smack it with the science stick, because, I'm not seeing any other explanation for why we keep having to hit the deck with an alacrity proportional to the size of the stones your throwing. Call it?"

"Yea..." Jimmy swayed a bit. "I'm hungry."

Kaykes eyed him. "It's not been that long since breakfast."

"Not... that kind of hungry, Kaykes." Jimmy breathed. "I've never carded that many things so quickly before. My hands are... itching.

Kaykes stared at him. Then she cursed. "That," She said. "Should have been the first thing we experimented with. Forest for trees. Come on," Kaykes was already striding away. "You can take something from my room."

"Like..." Jimmy's brain scrambled. "Your computer?"

"... I was thinking something more along the lines of a few pens...."

"Not. How. This. Works."

"You can't have my computer, Jimmy. Crap!"

They skidded down the hill and ran for their bikes. That was fine. As Kaykes breathlessly pointed out, two kids running for bikes was not suspicious in the slightest. But only if you didn't look at their faces.

"I need a contract, Kaykes. I need a contract now." Jimmy's face was white.